Representatives from almost 30 health, Indigenous, education, agriculture and tourism organizations went to Queen’s Park back in mid-January to share their asks of the provincial government’s upcoming budget. In the January 22, 2020 edition of “From Inside Queen’s Park”, the presentation that the Fix Our Schools Campaign made to the Standing Committee of Finance and Economic Affairs was summarized as follows:
“Fix Our Schools Krista Wylie, co-founder of the parent-led campaign that aims to get rid of the school repair backlog, said she wants to see the government double its current investments for fixing the province’s schools. Wylie said the government could eliminate the $16.3 billion repair backlog (NDP Leader Andrea Horwath mentioned the figure during question period in November) within seven or eight years if it invested an additional $1.6 billion each year for school infrastructure.
The PC government stated in its 2019 budget a plan to invest $13 billion over 10 years to build new schools and repair existing ones. This includes a $1.4 billion investment for the 2019-2020 school year for repairs. Wylie said the $1.4 billion “is simply not enough to make up for 20-plus years when provincial funding was so grossly inadequate.” She acknowledged that an additional $1.6 billion is a “huge investment,” but justified this by saying it was “financially irresponsible of this government to allow public assets to fall further into disrepair.” She also asked the government to create a “standard of good repair,” which would include issues like classroom temperature, asbestos, air quality and lead in drinking water, and publicly release annually updated school repair data.”